If you’ve been following Android for some time, you’ll know the popular OS hasn’t gone anywhere but up for the past year or so. Research after research, all show Android growing at an incredible pace. The last credible report came out a couple weeks ago via comScore. And it was more of the same; Android kept growing while everybody else stayed flat or lost a significant amount of market share.

With that in mind, you’ll have to excuse us when we take the following report with a truck-sized amount of salt. According to Needham’s Charlie Wolf, Apple’s iOS grew a whopping 17.2% in the first quarter thanks to the Verizon iPhone, going from 12.3% to 29.5% in just three months.

On the other hand, Wolf says Android lost 3.4% of market share, dropping from 52.9% to 49.5%. Again, that’s not what everybody else is saying. So, where’s Wolf getting this data? According to the CNNMoney article, he’s using IDC information to come up with his crazy statistics. The funny thing is, IDC’s last report says the complete opposite of what Wolf is saying.

Here’s what IDC said a few days ago about iOS:

After an initial explosive growth period, iOS is expected to grow at a more modest pace throughout the latter half of the forecast as the smartphone market matures and diversifies. Although a small market share decline is expected, IDC expects significant overall shipment volume growth through the end of 2015.Press ReleaseIDC

If “small market share decline” means “unbelievable 17.2% growth,” then yes, Mr. Wolf is right on the money. It seems Mr. Wolf’s report is based more on speculation and less on facts and data. Maybe by releasing these dubious reports, he’ll somehow validate his own prediction from January when he said the Verizon iPhone will “suck the wind out of Android’s growth.” This sounds more like something an Apple enthusiast would say, not a credible analyst.

As if these insane claims weren’t enough, Mr. Wolf also said this huge jump in market share iOS had is nothing compared to what’s going to happen once the iPhone 5 is released. He notes most Verizon customers are waiting for the iPhone 5, and once the device is released Android will be dead in the water. Huh, where have I heard that before?

What do you guys think? Is there some truth to this report, or is it just some guy trying to get attention? Let us know in the comments.

Alberto is a college student living somewhere between Miami, Sarasota and the World Wide Web. Although a former iPhone owner, Alberto is now a proud Android enthusiast. You can follow Alberto on Twitter and Google+ for his thoughts unworthy of an article.

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“Verizon customers bought more iPhones in three months than what AT&T was able to sell in four years. Ridiculous”

This refers to sales within the quarter – not cumulative (overall active) market share!
So yes, your statement there is ridiculous :)

Alberto Vildosola

If that’s truth, CNN needs to fix its article as well: “Wolf shows Apple’s share of the U.S. smartphone market gaining 12.3 percentage ” That sounds more like overall market not quarter sales.

http://Website James

If you quote the next few words from that sentence in the the CNN article…

“Using IDC data, Wolf shows Apple’s (AAPL) share of the U.S. smartphone market gaining 12.3 **percentage points to 29.5% in the March quarter**”

…it does say it just refers to the March quarter ;)

Alberto Vildosola

“Wolf shows Apple’s (AAPL) share of the U.S. smartphone market gaining 12.3 percentage points to 29.5% in the March quarter”

It doesn’t say anywhere that this data is just for the first quarter. This reads to me like: “Apple’s market share in the U.S. grew 12.3% in the first quarter”

If that sounds like he’s talking about just the first quarter I must be crazy

http://Website Nick

The article and event the chart we’re showing here show that there are quarterly sales numbers. We all knew that the iPhone would have a huge sales boost once it launched on Verizon. Now we just have to see what the numbers look like after Q2 wraps up.

This simply shows that Verizon is now a major player in the iPhone game, but don’t forget that there were a lot of people jumped from AT&T and Verizon who were forced to buy a new iPhone since their old GSM one is not compatible with Verizon’s CDMA network.

http://Website Isabella

people are sick of android’s endless fragmentation debacle…

http://Website John

Much better to have one phone to rule them all and in the darkness bind them.

The fragmentation “controversy” is just people trying to turn a weak bullpen into a perceived asset.

http://Website The_Omega_Man

Which people would that be?

http://Website elarella

Do you even understand the term fragmentation or are you using Steve Job’s definition?

http://Website Dee

I think there’s some truth to the popularity of iphone 5, you know the children will be camping for that one. But by the time it comes out ICS will have debuted. Assuming its the be all end all for android atm it will generate some buzz.
But I hardly think one phone can kill android. Especially with android getting quad core phones/tablets, still being the only phone with flash, a customizable experience, and a number of phone choices.
Once google gets these update processes in check there will be no arguments left.

http://Website TofuWarrior

I guess you could say that the tides have turned, since the iPhone 5 is now the perceived “Android-killer”!

http://Website dee

SSeriously.
it still boggles my mind to this day how Apple has events and advertises folders as a killer feature…
its only a matter of time before Apple innovates the widget market, a txt to speech api, apps that have native features, and jobs can kick and scream all he wants but flash will come to the iPhone. ANd I’m sure when they announce all these *magical * and *revolutionary* features the ikids will pretend like iPhone is the best and no other phone ever did it before. Seriously I wish the iPhone users would take there head out of their phone screen and look around and stop pretending like the iPhone is without flaw. It really is a Damn shame that Google didn’t see webos fit to buy because that would have destroyed the competition.

http://Website Thorpeland

Charlie Wolf must be the ghost writing name used by Johnathan Geller.

http://Website Mark

Nice article. Except Mr. Wolf forgot about the part where Big Foot and Steve Jobs ride off into the sunset on their pink unicorns. >_>

http://Website Cybersedan

Its just funny that the competitive roles have been reversed, I remember people laughing as each new android phone launched saying android would never take over.

Now the iPhone 5 alone will unseat android, that would be something.

http://Website Himbu

because iPhone is apremium product, while Androids phones are generally trash phones and cheap. With phones like htc wildfire flooding the market at best buy this is to be expected. Apple wants to keep their margins, not the overall market share leader.

http://Website TGeezy86

Yea, Android phones are “cheap trash.” Is that why the Droid Charge costs more on contract than an iPhone 4? Ah, it all makes sense now. It might also explain why so many Android users buy their phones outright, because we’re oohh so poor…idiot

http://Website TofuWarrior

From the recent “If you don’t have an iPhone” commercials, Apple clearly puts themselves on a high pedestal. They like to inflate their egos quite a bit.

The difference with Google is that Google sees Android not as only being on premium phones, but also on budget phones as well, because not everyone is rich enough to afford a $200 phone. They allow manufacturers to create lower-powered phones to cater to everyone. Android, ironically, is more of an “every man’s” OS than iOS.

Apple, on the other hand, doesn’t release budget-priced phones. They mark down their remaining stock of last year and 2 year old phones to simply get rid of stock and earn money while doing it. It’s basically like the rich tossing the average person a bone because they feel “pity” for them.

http://Website The_Omega_Man

a) “One Man’s Trash, is another Man’s Treasure!” So there must be a lot of people on this planet that have found a treasure…

b) Charging a relative premium and being a premium product are two different things. For that premium I suspect that many people expect to make and sustain phone calls with that smartPHONE product, right? Did many people expect that when they put that premium product up to their face that they would hang up the call, send dial tones to the unwitting recipients on the other end of the call or worse, hang up the call mid sentence? Since that premium product that you laud, did not have a real customer usable form of multi-tasking (besides playing music in the background), prior to version 4 of it’s now behind the times OS, is that this premium feature now? How about the future notification system 100% copied right from that of the very “Trash system,” of which you speak? So, as iOS slowly moves closer and closer to Android like functionality and capability, and the iphone moves closer and closer to some of the real smartphones, already on the market for a while now, does that mean that it is moving into the proverbial, “Trash” section of premium, in your mind?

http://Website Anna

I think: self-centered Americans. Blah blah blah. Europeans are not restricted to one carrier and iPhone does not seem to be anything else than one of popular overpriced gadgets.

http://Website TGeezy86

Chalk that up to the majority of Americans being mindless idiots easily overtaken by flashy gadgets and the illusion of being important and well-funded. I’m American btw

This is great as it gives us Android fans a yard stick to measure our greatness by. Keep up the great work! Oh and watch out for the Worm! I hear he is a nasty bugger.

http://Website Mike

After stealing a lot of the things that Android has been doing since it’s inception (ie the notification bar) I am sure it will garner perhaps more attention than just from the usual Apple Zombies that have to have the latest “iWhatever”. But I agree with Dee, one phone is not going to unseat everything that Android has going for it especially with Ice Cream and quad core processors right around the corner.

Now if I were RIM or the Windows Mobile division however, I would be updating my resume because it looks like it’s going to be a race of two for the foreseeable future….

http://Website The_Omega_Man

The question being, is that a Race to the bottom or a Race for a distant 3rd spot?

http://Website Lucian Armasu

Alberto, that can’t be right. First of all they are talking new quarter sales obvious, not total subscribers. Android is at around 35% and iPhone at 25% regarding that, but around 50% on new sales, and Apple at 29% now.

So where did you get that 17% increase? And I’ve never seen the iPhone’s “12% market share” number before either…

Where did you get those numbers from?

http://Website Lucian Armasu

Wow that CNN article is very confusing. I think they took wold share data, where iPhone had like 17%, and then looked at the *US* share data where iPhone now has 29% (from 28% previously) and thought iPhone added 12% market share (29-12).

Wow. What a failure. And he’s calling himself an analyst and can’t even differentiate from world and US data?

http://Website Robbert

It’s interesting how the iPhone’s market share around the globe is much lower than in the US alone even though the iPhone is available from practically every carrier in most countries, but was AT&T exclusive in the US.

http://Website elarella

It’s not surprising that the iPhone’s market share is lower around the globe than in the US. They historically has always had better, technically innovative phones overseas than here. I, myself have always used phones from overseas since 2003 until Android was introduced here in 2008. The technology from the original iPhone was already implemented on a couple phones overseas. Apple was just quick to get patents out on them.

http://Website Richard Yarrell

The REAL TECHNOLOGY PEOPLE i know is sick of USELESS iphones that are locked into some weird kind of ecosystem that offers nothing as far as customization. Regardless of Iphone 5 or OS5 they are still behind the curve. HTC pimp slaps APPLE anyday of the week.

http://Website The_Omega_Man

Perhaps on the technology front, however I must admit it is apple that is saying to HTC, “Bitch where is ma Money?” Just like M$ did!